The invention is related to a coin operated entertainment machine including a housing, viewing windows disposed on the housing, and rotating bodies disposed within the housing behind the viewing windows. The rotating bodies have symbols thereon displayed behind the viewing windows. A computer control unit determines a win or loss of a game played on the entertainment machine based on combinations, showing through the viewing windows, of the symbols on the rotating bodies. At least one enticement device is disposed within the housing and includes an enticement element visible from a region outside the housing.
Entertainment machines in the most various forms are in use. They are embodied as arcade games that is, as games customarily played in an arcade, with or without the possibility of winning money, examples being pinball machines, billiard tables, dart boards, video game machines and like devices. Many different provisions have already been made in order to entice a user or player to use entertainment machines of this kind, and to aid in giving him the proper entertainment value as long as he plays.
German Patent Disclosure DE 38 22 636 A1, for example, discloses an entertainment machine having an entertainment device. This automatic entertainment machine is embodied as arcade jackpot game including a corresponding jackpot device. The slot jackpot device includes, as a rule, three rotating bodies, which can be embodied as rollers or disks or as a folding card carousel. The rotating bodies carry symbols on the externally visible surfaces thereof which are visible through a viewing window of the entertainment machine. A rotation of the rotating bodies is stopped by random control thereof, and, after all the rotating bodies have come to a stop, the symbol combination shown in the viewing windows indicates a win or a loss. At different levels, prizes of money, bonus play, points, and/or free games are promised by the machine. In bonus rounds, a win ratio comes into use the has a higher chance of winning than normal play. In many of these computer-controlled arcade games, actuating mechanisms for the player are installed, which as a rule influence the operation of the individual rotating bodies.
In arcade games of this kind, a further, additional incentive to play, together with an additional prize potential, is offered by a light strip, which, when the machine is not being used, becomes an enticement device. The light strip is made up of different prize information elements. When the machine is not being used, these elements light up one after another in various orders. When a certain prize is earned, a certain element is illuminated, which carries a symbol that refers to the prize earned. If all elements of the light strip are illuminated, the bonus prize is awarded.
Furthermore, known coin-operated arcade games often have a risk game device, which, when a prize has already been earned, can be actuated via a button. At the actuation of the button the prize already earned and the prize that can be earned are visually highlighted on a risk display, which, in between uses, is switched so as to be an enticement device optionally provided with an acoustic background track, which indicates the different prize values. The risk game device randomly decides whether the prize already earned is lost, or increased to the prize that can be earned. When the prize is increased, is then re-displayed as the prize earned, and the prize that is now earnable is once again visually highlighted. The prize earned can be risked once again by means of the risk button. If the random selection means decides that the prize is lost, then the display field associated with the risk display lights up "ZERO" and a new game can begin.